Old ammo is... old. The way that it usually works is new ammo gets tested by lot (ie a factory makes (x) number of ammunition items and say 1% of those (randomly chosen, not by the manufacturer) get used to make sure that they work, out of those lets say that the specs call for (n%) to work as advertised. In addition most ammo has a shelf life that has 3 steps that can be simply categorized as (will work, should work and unreliable, so get rid of it.). It's actually a bit more complicated than that but in essence that's how it works.

If a problem is discovered in the field then all of that lot is removed from service... however if the failure is not considered hazardous then it get moved to a "Training use only" status. In other words training ammo is slightly more risky to use than active service ammo but the risk is supposed to be "May not fire off at all" but never "Might blow up on human contact". The thing is that sometimes there will be a round in an already identified as defective lot that has an unidentified problem making it even more hazardous than usual to handle normally.

This sounds like one of those rare occurrences (based upon the NBC report).

You people are a major pain, you know? A few good men die, and you're all gung ho to make jokes about it. I don't know what's wrong with the generation. Kill a few Marines, and you think it's funny. All the young men, these brothers, are willing to go to the shores of hell, and you're cracking jokes over this heartbreak. Ridge, jungle, desert, mountain, these guys fight with pride. Of the Marines' dedication there can be no doubt, and it's wrong to make fun of their death. Before dishonoring them with smart ass comments, why don't you tell it to the Marines?

dr_blasto:GirlScoutSniper: The facility had an operating budget of $270,000 and a payroll of $2.88 million in fiscal year 2009, according to its website.

Annnnd, this is relevant because???

/cues "because OBAMA" replies

Because at FOX, money is more important than people.

More precisely, because somebody at the GOP will use this accident as a reason why all military bases should be immune from all future sequesters. Because, you know, they happened at the same time, therefore it's possible to spin the two as being related.

Hell, somebody on the scriptwriting team for the more shrill and vocal of the FOX talk shows already had the "[X] is why military bases should be immune from [Y] meddling" argument written up. Now they can just drop "Hawthorne" and "Obama" into place and go rant for an hour on television, and their viewer/voting base will go lap it up.